Carnivore
Race Dog
About a month before the event, my buddy declares a non-negotiable fact of life.. “you WILL be here on Friday night, and we WILL be traveling to Aliwal…”
Yessir, you are de boss.!!! The next weeks were spent in counting down… most mornings I would get a sms declaring “7 more sleeps…” etc…
So, on the Friday, I left for work on the White Horse (I work 50km away) packed and ready, GPS on zero. Left the salt mine at about 3pm, stopped for coffee with my Brother-in-law in Port Alfred, and layered up because it was starting to get darn chilly – not to mention the usual headwind that I encounter on these 300km between PE and East London – irrespective of the direction I am going!
Well, I never know what bike Jock will have borrowed or begged (but not stolen…) for any particular ride.. this time he had secured the services of a nimble silver F800GS. But, it seemed that an additional aerodynamic device was required to lessen the buffeting… and said device had a curvature which was contradictory to the fluted shape of the GS’s windscreen.
Disassembling…
Right.. 180°C in the oven, let it sag.. cool down…
some delicate socket work and voila! Eet ees done, M’sieur.!
Not all animals think I am gonna eat them.. Tiger is a most loving, soppy feline fellow. We have this relationship.. whenever I visit Slumtown, he, um, well, sort of sleeps with me.
Fueling up at Beacon Bay Motors in East London, we welcomed the other riders of our Group.
Lee, a New Zealander who seems to have fallen in love with Inneke (a young SA Lady), and is sticking around till she is ready to head off into the wild blue yonder.. riding the Red Pony G650GS (which is in my sights, if the White Horse finds a new owner…)
Bruce and Veronica on their 950 Katoom – she apparently is to be found waiting at the bike if the keys are rattled..
Brett, riding a 950AdvS, like it was stolen.
Jock, on aforementioned GS800..
Me, on the venerable White Stallion, the oldest chronological combination of rider and mount.
And so, we set off with a fair amount of tar, heading for Queenstown. I turned off after about 30 km and found a nice bit of dirt road through some early morning farmland.
We were rewarded with sightings of skittish bushbuck. One fellow stared at me for about 10 seconds, before hopping over a 5’ fence like he was stepping over a brick..! I think someone whispered my name to him… He was gone in a wink.
Lee and Inneke in fluid unity on Red… his MX history was to become evident later in the mountains… excellent combination.
Bruce and Veronica coming through the crispy morning chill of the sleepy hollow. Some temperature inversions were experienced of around 3°C…!
We came out of the gravel into the little hamlet of Kei Road, where logic said, turn right and rejoin the N6…. No, I knew this little trail that was a bit of a joint loosener.. needed to get some kinks out and waken the senses. Having conquered some cattle ruts and dried mud bogs, we regrouped at the N6 and dissected the ride thus far. I think they though I was mad… what else was in store?
Well, from here on, I only had my Map60Csx to turn to, because the rest of the dirt for the weekend was equally unknown to me.
Looking good .. Lee and the Lass.
Looking good too .. Bruce and Veronica.
Brett, champing to get moving again.
Jock, my buddy, whom I love and respect very much. We’ve been messing around with cars, bikes, aircon and engineering projects for 35 years…
Me, and Horse.
Jock sent me this peecha, which the caption, “..A peecher sez a 1000 words !” True… it is so great to be on the road!
We hit Queenstown… 100m before the Caltex Grudge, my Horse went haywire! I though I had broken a fork tube or something. I had 15 degrees of left lock just to stay straight and the bike wallowed all over the place.
It was the fastest, most instant deflated front tyre I have ever experienced… caught me totally by surprise. We bought a new tube at Auto Motorcycles, and the main guy at Hi-Q gave us his workshop space and some gentlemen to assist… many thanks to him and them!
I started to get slack with picture-taking.. here we are on the outskirts of Dordrecht…
.. an hour behing schedule. We missed out on the coffee, rusks and chit-chat of the official start of the Ride – organized by the Queenstown chapter of the Ulysses Club. We hoped that we would meet up again with the rest of our team… understandably, the two KTMs were probably in Barkly East by now, where lunch was to be had, and viewing some Big Screen Rigours of Rugby. But we still had 95km of mountain to traverse.
The two KTM’s adventure – pics supplied by Veronica, who has a rather spiffy Canon..
Which way, José..?
Verlatenheid…
Brett on the way up the Pass, heading for Barkly East.
Back to us..
We met Lee and Inneke who had waited for us, knowing that we must eventually come this way. And so, we turned onto a dirt road..
..which turned out to be an absolutely stunning road to Rossouw.
They even have a library!
And a church..
People live there… but I don’t know what they do…
It looks really dry.. which way, Rob..?
Come, this way!!
There are plenty of little streams, going this way..
.. and that way.
.. and nice little bridges..
The brown terrain is probably the winter grass… there seems to be a lot of water gathered in little dams and streams.
We entered Barkly East and took over the Pub ‘n Grill.. kit all over the place!
Not many bikes here yet!
..which was eventually overrun with Riders and Partners, from the odd Harley to all manners of sport bike to our Adventure bikes. The place was festive to say the least… and the right team won!
Lee, our New Zealander, was quite happy with the rugby result..!
This young lass was run off her feet! Snake, egg and chips, this way.. over here… over there, medium to well done, medium rare… eggs sunny side up, … eish! She coped magnificently! And the Carnivore was happy!
After lunch, we met up again at the turn off to Joubert’s Pass, about 40km up the road towards Aliwal North. This is 47.1km of absolutely magnificent mountain pass. It is a must-do.. guys, really!
Here we are (a much expanded group, by now) at another stream..
Brett having a private moment!
The ladies comparing notes… while Lee captures the moment from across the river…
..while the boys do their own story-telling..
And Veronica tries to get Bruce up and in the saddle again… “Come on, Baby… pleeeeeeeeeeezzz!”
Me..
Farmer-boy and Pretty-young-thing come through on a kwat.. helmet-less, of course..
Pretty country, slow and peaceful.
A sort of wintry softness on the land..
And so, up to the summit of Joubert’s Pass… 7340 feet a.s.l.
My bike.. the White Stallion.
Yessir, you are de boss.!!! The next weeks were spent in counting down… most mornings I would get a sms declaring “7 more sleeps…” etc…
So, on the Friday, I left for work on the White Horse (I work 50km away) packed and ready, GPS on zero. Left the salt mine at about 3pm, stopped for coffee with my Brother-in-law in Port Alfred, and layered up because it was starting to get darn chilly – not to mention the usual headwind that I encounter on these 300km between PE and East London – irrespective of the direction I am going!
Well, I never know what bike Jock will have borrowed or begged (but not stolen…) for any particular ride.. this time he had secured the services of a nimble silver F800GS. But, it seemed that an additional aerodynamic device was required to lessen the buffeting… and said device had a curvature which was contradictory to the fluted shape of the GS’s windscreen.
Disassembling…
Right.. 180°C in the oven, let it sag.. cool down…
some delicate socket work and voila! Eet ees done, M’sieur.!
Not all animals think I am gonna eat them.. Tiger is a most loving, soppy feline fellow. We have this relationship.. whenever I visit Slumtown, he, um, well, sort of sleeps with me.
Fueling up at Beacon Bay Motors in East London, we welcomed the other riders of our Group.
Lee, a New Zealander who seems to have fallen in love with Inneke (a young SA Lady), and is sticking around till she is ready to head off into the wild blue yonder.. riding the Red Pony G650GS (which is in my sights, if the White Horse finds a new owner…)
Bruce and Veronica on their 950 Katoom – she apparently is to be found waiting at the bike if the keys are rattled..
Brett, riding a 950AdvS, like it was stolen.
Jock, on aforementioned GS800..
Me, on the venerable White Stallion, the oldest chronological combination of rider and mount.
And so, we set off with a fair amount of tar, heading for Queenstown. I turned off after about 30 km and found a nice bit of dirt road through some early morning farmland.
We were rewarded with sightings of skittish bushbuck. One fellow stared at me for about 10 seconds, before hopping over a 5’ fence like he was stepping over a brick..! I think someone whispered my name to him… He was gone in a wink.
Lee and Inneke in fluid unity on Red… his MX history was to become evident later in the mountains… excellent combination.
Bruce and Veronica coming through the crispy morning chill of the sleepy hollow. Some temperature inversions were experienced of around 3°C…!
We came out of the gravel into the little hamlet of Kei Road, where logic said, turn right and rejoin the N6…. No, I knew this little trail that was a bit of a joint loosener.. needed to get some kinks out and waken the senses. Having conquered some cattle ruts and dried mud bogs, we regrouped at the N6 and dissected the ride thus far. I think they though I was mad… what else was in store?
Well, from here on, I only had my Map60Csx to turn to, because the rest of the dirt for the weekend was equally unknown to me.
Looking good .. Lee and the Lass.
Looking good too .. Bruce and Veronica.
Brett, champing to get moving again.
Jock, my buddy, whom I love and respect very much. We’ve been messing around with cars, bikes, aircon and engineering projects for 35 years…
Me, and Horse.
Jock sent me this peecha, which the caption, “..A peecher sez a 1000 words !” True… it is so great to be on the road!
We hit Queenstown… 100m before the Caltex Grudge, my Horse went haywire! I though I had broken a fork tube or something. I had 15 degrees of left lock just to stay straight and the bike wallowed all over the place.
It was the fastest, most instant deflated front tyre I have ever experienced… caught me totally by surprise. We bought a new tube at Auto Motorcycles, and the main guy at Hi-Q gave us his workshop space and some gentlemen to assist… many thanks to him and them!
I started to get slack with picture-taking.. here we are on the outskirts of Dordrecht…
.. an hour behing schedule. We missed out on the coffee, rusks and chit-chat of the official start of the Ride – organized by the Queenstown chapter of the Ulysses Club. We hoped that we would meet up again with the rest of our team… understandably, the two KTMs were probably in Barkly East by now, where lunch was to be had, and viewing some Big Screen Rigours of Rugby. But we still had 95km of mountain to traverse.
The two KTM’s adventure – pics supplied by Veronica, who has a rather spiffy Canon..
Which way, José..?
Verlatenheid…
Brett on the way up the Pass, heading for Barkly East.
Back to us..
We met Lee and Inneke who had waited for us, knowing that we must eventually come this way. And so, we turned onto a dirt road..
..which turned out to be an absolutely stunning road to Rossouw.
They even have a library!
And a church..
People live there… but I don’t know what they do…
It looks really dry.. which way, Rob..?
Come, this way!!
There are plenty of little streams, going this way..
.. and that way.
.. and nice little bridges..
The brown terrain is probably the winter grass… there seems to be a lot of water gathered in little dams and streams.
We entered Barkly East and took over the Pub ‘n Grill.. kit all over the place!
Not many bikes here yet!
..which was eventually overrun with Riders and Partners, from the odd Harley to all manners of sport bike to our Adventure bikes. The place was festive to say the least… and the right team won!
Lee, our New Zealander, was quite happy with the rugby result..!
This young lass was run off her feet! Snake, egg and chips, this way.. over here… over there, medium to well done, medium rare… eggs sunny side up, … eish! She coped magnificently! And the Carnivore was happy!
After lunch, we met up again at the turn off to Joubert’s Pass, about 40km up the road towards Aliwal North. This is 47.1km of absolutely magnificent mountain pass. It is a must-do.. guys, really!
Here we are (a much expanded group, by now) at another stream..
Brett having a private moment!
The ladies comparing notes… while Lee captures the moment from across the river…
..while the boys do their own story-telling..
And Veronica tries to get Bruce up and in the saddle again… “Come on, Baby… pleeeeeeeeeeezzz!”
Me..
Farmer-boy and Pretty-young-thing come through on a kwat.. helmet-less, of course..
Pretty country, slow and peaceful.
A sort of wintry softness on the land..
And so, up to the summit of Joubert’s Pass… 7340 feet a.s.l.
My bike.. the White Stallion.
